Most engineers think…
Most people picture DDoS protection as 'an appliance that auto-blocks floods'. That mental model breaks the moment a multi-vector attack arrives faster than any single box can adapt.
Radware splits the job into people and a platform: the Emergency Response Team (ERT) is 24x7 humans who remote into your DefensePro to analyse an attack and write signatures live; the ERT Active Attackers Feed (EAAF) is automated intelligence pushed every ~15 minutes to block known attackers pre-emptively; and APSolute Vision is the single console where you configure, monitor and report across the whole estate. Understanding that split is what lets you size the console, switch the feed on safely, and know exactly when to call the humans.
① People + platform — why DDoS defense needs both
The single most important idea: Radware does not hand you 'one box that blocks everything'. It pairs a human expert team with a central management plane. Automation handles the known and the fast; humans handle the novel and the messy — the multi-vector attack that mutates while it runs.
The Emergency Response Team (ERT) is the people layer: a 24x7 group, backed by Radware's SOC, that you call when an attack outruns your shift. APSolute Vision is the platform layer: one console to configure, monitor and report across every DefensePro, Alteon and AppWall you own. Pure automation fails on a fresh IoT botnet with a new DNS vector — which is exactly when the ERT remotes in and tunes.
Radware DDoS defense is best described as…
② Inside the ERT and the Active Attackers Feed
When you invoke the ERT under attack, experts gain direct control of your DefensePro device(s). They assess the live attack, enable or tune behavioural features, and add custom signatures to restore service — hands-on mitigation, not just advice. The ERT leans on Radware's SOC and Security Update Service (SUS) for the latest coverage, and it is the human backbone of the DDoS Attack Mitigation Service and the fully managed Cloud DDoS Protection Service.
The feed that blocks before the attack
The ERT Active Attackers Feed (EAAF) is the automated cousin of the team. It is a real-time list of currently-active attackers — evolving IoT botnets and new DNS vectors — built from ERT botnet algorithms plus manual research, scored in a big-data cloud platform, and pushed to DefensePro about every 15 minutes so it can block attackers before an attack starts. EAAF supports per-category and risk-level control (High/Medium/Low), a Report-Only mode, and categories such as Tor and Web Attacker — all managed from APSolute Vision 4.30 or later.
Radware's 24x7 experts who take direct control of DefensePro during an attack to analyse, tune and write custom signatures live.
Real-time feed of currently-active DDoS attackers pushed to DefensePro about every 15 minutes for pre-emptive blocking.
Central console to configure, monitor and report on DefensePro, Alteon and AppWall across up to 1,000 devices.
Radware's inline, real-time DDoS mitigation device that the ERT controls and that consumes EAAF and SUS updates.
In an interview, do not blur them: the ERT is the 24x7 human team you call when automation isn't enough; the EAAF is automated threat intelligence pushed to DefensePro about every 15 minutes. One is people taking control of your box; the other is a list of attackers your box blocks on its own.
How often is the ERT Active Attackers Feed (EAAF) pushed to DefensePro?
③ APSolute Vision — the single pane of glass
APSolute Vision is where the estate is run from. One console centrally manages up to 1,000 devices across multiple data centers — setup, configuration, software management and true performance management of DefensePro, Alteon and AppWall. You stop logging into every box to see an attack or change a policy.
What the console actually gives you
Real-time, customizable dashboards with attack analytics; centralized attack management, monitoring and reporting with real-time identification, prioritization and response. It aggregates and normalizes events, correlates them, supports Root Cause Analysis, and alerts via email, SNMP traps and Syslog. RBAC gives granular per-user/per-group roles (monitor-only, config, alerts, reports) scoped to selected devices, authenticated by a local server or RADIUS. It deploys as a physical or virtual (Hyper-V/KVM) appliance.
APSolute Vision manages the Radware portfolio — DefensePro, Alteon and AppWall — up to 1,000 devices. It does not centrally manage arbitrary third-party gear like a Cisco router. Naming the portfolio (not 'everything') is the precise answer.
▶ Watch a DDoS flood get blocked and mitigated end-to-end
How an attack on a customer is stopped — feed first, then humans. Press Play for the healthy path, then Break it to see the classic failure.
You need to configure, monitor and report on 200 DefensePro devices across several data centers from one place. What do you use?
④ The managed-service angle — Silver, Gold and the MSSP Portal
Not every team wants to run this in-house. Radware packages the human and feed layers as subscriptions: standalone EAAF; ERT Silver (SUS + EAAF + Geolocation); and ERT Gold (Silver plus the ERT Under Attack Service — the live, hands-on mitigation). EAAF on its own still requires one of these subscriptions to operate.
When to outsource
For service providers and lean enterprises, the MSSP Portal layers multi-tenant accounts on top of APSolute Vision and DefensePro, with Operator and Service-Provider personas, per-tenant dashboards, scrubbing-diversion control and tenant-level reporting. This is the model behind Radware's SLA-backed managed DDoS service — large-scale scrubbing capacity with signatures generated in seconds. An Indian enterprise with a small night shift usually buys ERT Gold or an MSSP service; one with a mature 24x7 SOC may self-manage with EAAF and call the ERT only for surges.
Arjun Nair, network security lead at Konkan Broadband (a Pune ISP), faces this
At 2 a.m. customer circuits saturate, the upstream link is maxed and the support line floods — a volumetric multi-vector flood with DNS amplification.
A fresh IoT botnet is hammering customer IP ranges faster than the on-call shift can write rules by hand.
In APSolute Vision the DefensePro security dashboard flags UDP/DNS floods and many attacking sources; the EAAF profile is licensed but set to Report-Only, so it is watching, not blocking.
APSolute Vision ▸ Configuration ▸ DefensePro ▸ Network Protection ▸ ERT Active Attackers Feed ProfilesSwitch the EAAF profile to block mode (Tor + Web Attacker, High/Medium risk) so DefensePro pre-emptively drops known active attackers, then invoke the ERT hotline; the ERT remotes in, tunes behavioural signatures for the DNS-amplification vector and adds a custom signature.
The APSolute Vision dashboard shows attack traffic dropping and clean traffic restored, the EAAF report shows blocked sources climbing, and a follow-up report documents time-to-mitigate for the post-incident review.
Never close a DDoS ticket on 'looks better now'. The APSolute Vision dashboard and EAAF report show real-time attack analytics, blocked sources and time-to-mitigate. That single read confirms the attack is actually down and documents the incident for review.
An interviewer asks the difference between ERT Silver and ERT Gold. Best answer?
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🧠 In your own words
Type one line: why is Radware DDoS defense called 'people plus platform' rather than 'an appliance'? Then compare with the expert version.
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📖 Glossary
- Emergency Response Team (ERT)
- Radware's 24x7 experts who take direct control of DefensePro during an attack to analyse, tune and write custom signatures.
- ERT Active Attackers Feed (EAAF)
- Real-time feed of currently-active DDoS attackers pushed to DefensePro about every 15 minutes for pre-emptive blocking.
- APSolute Vision
- Centralized console to configure, monitor and report on DefensePro, Alteon and AppWall across up to 1,000 devices.
- DefensePro
- Radware's inline, real-time DDoS/DoS mitigation device that the ERT controls and that consumes EAAF and SUS updates.
- Security Update Service (SUS)
- Subscription delivering ongoing signature and threat updates to DefensePro, backing the ERT and EAAF.
- Report-Only mode
- EAAF setting that logs would-be blocks per category and risk level without enforcing, used for safe tuning.
- RBAC
- Role-based access control in APSolute Vision; granular roles scoped to device groups, authenticated by local server or RADIUS.
- MSSP Portal
- Multi-tenant overlay on APSolute Vision and DefensePro letting service providers offer managed, SLA-backed DDoS protection.
- Multi-vector attack
- A DDoS that combines several techniques at once, such as a volumetric flood with DNS amplification.
📚 Sources
- Radware — DDoS Attack Mitigation Service | Emergency Response Team (ERT). radware.com
- Radware — Emergency Response Team (ERT) / CERT — Application Security. radware.com
- Radware — ERT Active Attackers Feed Data Sheet. radware.com
- Radware — ERT Active Attackers Feed Profiles (DefensePro Release Notes). portals.radware.com
- Radware — APSolute Vision: Management & Monitoring Tool. radware.com
- Radware — MSSP Portal: Your DDoS Detection and Mitigation Solution. radware.com
What's next?
Got the people-plus-platform model? Next, go deep on DefensePro itself — behavioural detection, the signature engine, and how it tells a flash crowd apart from a volumetric flood in real time.